Ex-Sands exec turns on Adelson

The man who headed Las Vegas Sands Corp. for almost 14 years gave blistering testimony Wednesday against his former boss, Sheldon Adelson.

Williams Weidner took the stand in the Las Vegas just days after Adelson testified in a $328 million breach-of-contract case brought by a Hong Kong businessman.

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Speaking energetically, but without the jokes and asides that characterized Adelson’s testimony earlier in the week, Weidner said the 79-year-old Sands CEO had treated him poorly, sought to silence him, and nearly driven his own company to bankruptcy.

This is the second time the case has played out in a Las Vegas court. The jury decided against Sands in 2008, but the verdict was tossed on appeal.

Weidner’s testimony was expected to be the first wild card in what has so far been a rehash of the first trial. That’s because Weidner, 68, was still employed by Sands when he testified in 2008.

Weidner was president and chief operating officer at Sands in the early 2000s when Richard Suen claims he helped the company enter the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau.

During the first trial, Adelson called Weidner a liar and said he had exaggerated the positive outcome of a meeting Suen arranged with Chinese officials.

Weidner left the company in 2009 amid a falling out with its CEO.

Weidner testified Wednesday that he had asked the board to allow him to run Sands without interference from Adelson, whom he accused of mismanagement. Among the reasons he cited was the original breach-of-contract case.

“I had lost confidence in him because of this trial. This trial was injurious to relations in China. It should have never happened,” he said.

Weidner said the board begged him to stay but was ultimately overruled by Adelson, who eventually bailed out the company with $1 billion of his own money.

Weidner added that he walked away from a severance package worth between $20 million and $60 million because of a clause that would have prohibited him from saying negative things about Adelson, whom Forbes ranks as the ninth richest American.

“He did not treat me well,” Weidner said.

Sands spokesman Ron Reese could not immediately be reached for comment on Weidner’s testimony.

On Monday, Adelson walked back his earlier comments about Weidner telling lies and said the antipathy between them had “dissipated.”

Weidner plays a key role in the breach-of-contract case because he signed a 2001 letter offering Suen $5 million plus 2 percent of the profits from Macau, a former Portuguese colony that has become the world’s most biggest gambling market.

It is unclear exactly what Suen had to do to hold up his end of the bargain.

Asked Monday how much help Suen had given the company, Adelson replied, “zero.”

In one of several direct contradictions of Adelson’s testimony, Wiedner said Suen had in fact provided valuable help and deserved compensation for his work.